


current drag me down

by shineyma



Series: and carry me away [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-07-11 15:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7059394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s here because she’s useful and willing, not because he loves her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first chapter was previously posted as a drabble on tumblr, so if you follow me there, you've probably already seen it. Chapter two (and beyond, eventually) is new.

By the time Jemma catches her breath, Grant is already more than half-dressed.

He’s at the dresser, pulling open the top drawer in search of socks, and she knows the moment to ask him has arrived. If she delays any longer, she’ll miss her chance, and will be forced to seek him out in his office to ask him later.

She decided against that days ago—though in the moment, naked and pleasantly sore and faced with ruining her own afterglow, she can’t quite recall why—and so she gathers her courage and sits up.

“Grant?”

He doesn’t look at her; he’s been distracted by his phone, and is texting with a frown. “Yeah?”

Her heart pounds hard in her throat, and she gives herself a second or two to stall, fussing with the blanket. She’s practiced this conversation a hundred times—or tried to, at least. Grant is so unpredictable; there’s no way of knowing how he might respond, and therefore no way to prepare for it.

And it doesn’t at all help that she’s not even certain what sort of response she _wants_ from him.

“I…have a request,” she says. Her voice is perfectly light, despite the way she has to force the words out, and she gives thanks for small mercies. “If I may?”

His eyes flicker up to meet hers in the mirror above the dresser, but only for a heartbeat. Then his attention returns to his phone.

“What kind of request?”

“I’d like—if it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like one of the guards on my lab reassigned.”

Grant pauses, thumb hovering above his phone’s screen, and Jemma holds her breath, hoping and fearing in equal measure that he’ll ask why. And not because she doesn’t have a reason: she does, and an excellent one at that. She’s been much more successful in practicing _that_ conversation, and she does one last mental run through as the silence drags out.

She holds no illusions about the way of things. She’s in love with him, pathetically and utterly—so much so that she left SHIELD for him, abandoning her morals and principles in favor of any scrap of affection he deigns to provide—but it’s hardly reciprocated. He’s kept her gladly enough, making use of her in his labs and in his bed, but he’s never made any bones of the fact that he feels nothing for her. At best, he’s treated her as a kind of toy: something to be played with when the mood strikes and set aside when it doesn’t.

She’s here because she’s useful and willing, not because he loves her—and that’s something that _everyone_ knows. Including the guards on her lab.

If she had her way, they’d _all_ be reassigned, but she knows it would be a logistical nightmare and is therefore unlikely to be allowed. She has no choice but to endure their behavior—their blatant staring and their open speculation as to whether Grant might allow them to take their turns once he tires of her.

But she would really rather not endure the behavior of the head guard, the worst offender. He looks at and talks about her, just as the others do, but he also _touches_ her. Nothing inappropriate, not yet, but she can see him working up to it—can _feel_ it in the way his fingers linger on her shoulder.

She’s petrified of where it might lead, and thus, her request.

“Sure,” Grant says finally. He finishes his text, then tucks his phone away. “Talk to Evie, she’ll handle it.”

Something twists horribly in her stomach, but she pushes it aside in time to give him a smile as he returns to the bed. “Thank you.”

He nods dismissively as he sits to pull his socks on, and Jemma swallows down the absurd urge to cry. She knew it was a possibility he wouldn’t ask—was even _hoping_ he wouldn’t, in part, if only for fear that he wouldn’t _care_ that one of his men is building towards assaulting her—so she doesn’t know why she’s so upset that he hasn’t.

…That’s a lie. She knows precisely why.

He never expresses any interest in her. Why would he? She’s nothing to him—just a useful asset that also happens to warm his bed. But some foolish part of her keeps hoping for it, keeps her holding her breath and waiting for the day that he wakes up caring.

“Speaking of your lab,” Grant says, breaking the silence as he laces up one of his boots, “those grenades…?”

Her heart sinks, but she plasters on a smile anyway. It’s an excellent and well-timed reminder: he doesn’t care. He doesn’t and he won’t and she needs to stop waiting, because she’s only hurting herself with it.

“They’re in the last stage of testing,” she reports as cheerfully as she’s able. “If all goes well, they’ll be ready for mass production by the end of the week.”

“Good,” he says, plainly satisfied, and stands. “You going back to work, or what?”

It’s a fair question, as he’s fully dressed and she’s only moved to sit up, but it still sends a hot jolt of shame through her. With the ease of long practice, she ignores both the feeling and the question of whether evoking it was his intention.

“In a little while,” she says. “I’m going to take a shower first.”

He gives her a quick once over, smiling just a little as his gaze rests on her hair. “Probably a good idea.”

Considering the enjoyment he takes in tugging on and twisting his hands in her hair, it’s no surprise that it tends to be a tangled mess at the end of their encounters. If his expression is any indication, this time is no exception.

Fortunately, though they aren’t technically living together—she still has separate assigned quarters—she spends the night with him frequently enough to keep clothes and toiletries here. She can only imagine what leaving his quarters with sex hair in the middle of the day would do to her already poor reputation.

Grant looks about to say something else, but his phone buzzes loudly, and just like that, she loses his attention.

“I’ll tell Evie to expect you,” he says, absently, and then he’s out the door, drawing his phone from his pocket as he goes.

Jemma doesn’t loiter any longer in his bed. There’s work to be done, after all, and no point in laying about wasting daylight on fantasies of what it would be like to have more than a fraction of his time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you follow me on tumblr, you've probably already read the first chapter, which was posted as a drabble a couple days ago. This chapter is brand new. (And not the follow up I actually meant to write. Muses.) 
> 
> I am still behind on comment replies, because I'm lame. Sorry!
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

After a brief and completely painless conversation with Grant’s assistant, Levens is reassigned, and Jemma enjoys six days without torment (or even acknowledgment) of any sort from her guards.

Whether that’s because Evie said something to them or if they simply made the connection between Levens’ reassignment and his behavior towards her, she couldn’t guess. Either way, she’s unspeakably grateful for it. For six blissful days, she works in peace.

Peace made all the more delightful by what she’s working _on_.

The grenades have been approved and sent along to production, leaving Jemma free to return to her favorite pet project. Months ago, she succeeded in partially replicating GH-325. It’s not _as_ effective—it certainly isn’t capable of bringing a man back from the dead—but that lack is balanced out by the fact that it doesn’t include any alien elements, and therefore doesn’t drive people to insanity. It’s capable of accelerating healing by a factor of ten and earned her quite a bit of praise, especially after Grant made use of it in the wake of being shot.

It is also, however, dreadfully expensive to manufacture: a problem, as Grant’s new HYDRA has only a fraction the funding of the old. As such, she’s frequently returned to it, hoping to find a way to improve the formula. She hasn’t had much luck so far, but on the seventh day after Levens’ reassignment, she finally feels she’s making progress.

Perhaps that’s why she doesn’t notice the silence in the lab until it’s too late.

She’s reaching for a new pair of gloves when the tense atmosphere finally penetrates her thoughts, and she looks up just in time to catch Doctor Zaytsev’s uncomfortable expression melt into a determined air of _I see nothing_.

For a moment, Jemma is puzzled; then there are too-rough hands fitting over her hips and a too-broad chest pressing against her back, and her heart leaps to her throat.

“Hi there, Doctor Simmons.” It’s Levens, speaking in a sweet tone that turns her stomach just as surely as the way he presses his lips to the curve of her neck. “Miss me?”

“No,” she snaps. She attempts to shrug him away, but only ends up held more tightly against him. “Let _go_.”

“I don’t think I will,” he says. “I think you owe me an apology for getting me demoted, and I think you owe it to me now.” He rocks his hips against hers. “But don’t worry; an _oral_ apology will do just fine.”

Bile rises in Jemma’s throat at the innuendo, but she does her best to disguise her reaction. She refuses to give him the satisfaction of knowing that her skin is crawling and stomach churning with disgust and fear.

“If you don’t let go of me _immediately_ , the only thing you’ll be getting is a concussion.”

She sounds much more confident—and much less frightened—than she actually is, and she can be proud of that.

Levens, of course, isn’t impressed.

“Now don’t be like that, baby,” he says, and Jemma’s skin goes cold as one of his hands creeps up her shirt. “I think we both know there’s something else you’re dying to give—”

The end of his sentence is lost under the sudden crack of a gunshot, and his hands clamp down painfully as he cries out. He’s unsteady now, however, and this time she’s successful in getting away from him—the reason for which becomes clear when he collapses without her support and she turns to find him clutching a bleeding leg.

It’s no less than he deserves, but when Jemma looks to Grant, standing in the doorway still with his gun raised, she finds she can’t feel anything but terror in the face of his blank expression.

“Bagley,” he says quietly, and one of the guards takes a few jerky steps forward.

“Sir!”

“Put Levens in a cell,” Grant orders. He tucks his gun into the back of his jeans, a move that Jemma usually finds bizarrely sexy turned somehow intimidating. “I’ll deal with him later.”

Bagley scrambles to obey, all but running across the lab to seize Levens; his speed startles Jemma, and she stumbles back along the counter before she can stop herself. Pride has her planting her feet the moment she can, of course—but it’s the look Grant pins her with that freezes her in place.

“The rest of you,” he says, without breaking eye contact, “leave. Now.”

As the lab empties, guards and scientists alike fleeing like rats from a sinking ship, Grant stays by the door. He keeps his eyes on Jemma, and his expression—of which she doesn’t quite know what to make—is enough to put a damper on what otherwise would be overwhelming delight.

(It’s probably not something she _should_ be taking delight in, but—he shot one of his own men for her! Surely he must care at least a _little_ , to waste a bullet and put one of his own men out of commission purely for her sake?)

The last people—Doctors Summers and Horne, visibly terrified to be passing so close to Grant—filter out, and Grant pushes the door closed without looking. He doesn’t lock it…but then, he hardly needs to. Jemma has no doubt the entire compound will know what’s happened within minutes; no one will be disturbing them.

He still hasn’t broken eye contact, and she still can’t read his face. It’s beginning to make her a bit nervous.

Actually, that could simply be a side effect of her adrenaline wearing off and the truth of what might have happened sinking in. Despite her threat to Levens, she had little chance of physically overpowering him, and there’s not a doubt in her mind that the other guards—and even her fellow scientists—were prepared to stand back and let him do what he would.

Just the thought weakens her knees, and she drags in a slow breath, leaning back against the counter for support.

“Thank you,” she says.

Grant smiles humorlessly. “You wanna tell me what that was?”

Giving up on keeping her feet, she sinks to the floor to sit back against the cabinets. What she _wants_ is to be hugged and reassured, and then perhaps held and comforted while she cries out her frustration and fear, but she knows that’s not on the table. It’s not the sort of relationship she has with him—in fact, it’s not the sort of relationship she has with _anyone_.

And isn’t that a sobering thought. There’s no one in the world who would care to comfort her right now. Falling apart isn’t an option for her, not anymore.

How did she get here?

Grant is still waiting for an answer.

“What did it look like?” she asks, strangely reluctant to actually put to words what nearly just happened.

“It _looked_ like a lovers’ spat.”

Jemma closes her eyes. She can’t make herself angry at the implied accusation. She’s just—tired. Defeated. Empty, which she supposes makes it almost funny that there’s no room in her for offense at his doubt.

“It wasn’t,” she says shortly.

“Then what was it?”

His voice comes from much closer than before, and she opens her eyes to find him crouching in front of her. His expression is…odd.

“Jemma,” he says, sternly, when she doesn’t answer. “What was that?”

“That was him—” She can’t say it. “He was going to—”

Her voice breaks, and just like that, the tears she’s been holding back well over. She buries her face in her hands, fighting for calm, and thus misses the moment when Grant moves from in front of her to beside her. It takes her wholly by surprise when she’s hauled into his lap.

It’s a shock, but not an unwelcome one; she curls desperately into his embrace, hiding her face in his shoulder as she sobs.

Grant simply strokes her hair and waits her out.

It’s only a moment or two before she regains control, but even after she’s pushed down the remainder of her tears, she stays where she is. She doesn’t know what moved Grant to comfort her, but as long as it’s on offer, she intends to enjoy it. She certainly _deserves_ it.

Sadly, she doesn’t get very long before Grant shifts his shoulder, silently urging her to sit up. He doesn’t move her off of him, though; that’s something.

“Maybe you can clear a few things up for me here,” he says.

She swipes at her wet cheeks, feeling slow and stupid under the pounding headache her crying caused. “About what?”

“You asked for Levens to be reassigned last week.” He searches her face, attention so completely focused on her for the first time in so long that she doesn’t know whether to laugh with delight or flee. “Was this why? You thought he would try to hurt you?”

She nods.

“Did you tell the other guards you were worried—?”

He stops, eyebrows raised, at her not at all delighted laugh.

“I knew they wouldn’t help,” she says, once she gets the sudden surge of bitter incredulity under control. “They were far more likely to join in.”

Grant’s expression darkens into something petrifying. “What.”

“You must know,” she says. “Mustn’t you?”

It’s inconceivable that he might not, that a man who’s made a career of coming out on top by virtue of his skill in reading and manipulating people might have missed the way his men view her.

“Know what?” he demands.

“You’ve hardly made a secret of the fact you care nothing for me,” she reminds him. “Your men know it just as well as I do. They’re all just waiting for the day you tire of me so they can…”

Her voice fails her, but it appears—as his face darkens even further—that she’s made her point.

“They threatened you?” he asks.

“They don’t _have_ to,” she says. “They stand along the walls and watch me and talk and—”

Tears are threatening again, and she takes a moment to breathe deeply as she reaches for calm.

Grant is no help there; he looks the furthest thing from it. There’s a muscle ticking in his jaw and a tightness to his eyes she hasn’t seen since he was shot.

“No,” he says. “I didn’t know.” His arm is tense around her waist. “Markham passed the word on to me a couple weeks ago that there was talk about you in the ranks, but it sounded like you were involved with one of them, not…”

He stops to do some deep breathing of his own, and Jemma’s first reaction—absurdly—is a resigned kind of hurt. He’s spent two weeks thinking she was involved with someone else (which explains the lover’s spat impression) and never said a word. He didn’t _care_.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, and she’s far too emotionally exhausted to give him anything but the truth.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t care,” she admits.

The confession sits between them like a stone for a long moment, and then Grant sighs.

“I don’t love you, no,” he says, so bluntly it barely stings. “But you belong to me, and I don’t share what’s mine.”  He sinks a hand into her hair and angles his head to meet her eyes directly. “No one is allowed to touch you. Not now, not when I’m not around, not even if I get tired of you.”

It’s just as well he began with such a frank dismissal; otherwise, the intensity and sincerity of his claim might have given her hope.

(It…may have given her hope anyway.)

She doesn’t even remember the last time she had so much of his attention, and while she should certainly be upset (or even frightened) by his possessive attitude, she’s only delighted. Her heart fairly sings—she _belongs_ to him. He cares enough to want to own her.

It’s pathetic that this so thrills her, but being pathetic in her feelings for him is nothing new.

“The next time someone looks at you,” he says, “I want you to tell me.”

“Okay,” she agrees at once—and a touch hoarsely. “I will.”

“Good.” He pats her thighs, signaling that it’s time she moved, and she reluctantly shifts off of him. “I’ll be off base for a few days. You’re gonna sleep in my quarters while I’m gone.”

It’s an order, rather than an offer or request, but somehow that only makes the further proof of his care better. He cares enough to want to own her, to want her in his room while he’s away—and, most remarkably of all, to hold her when she was crying.

If not for the attempted assault, this would be a splendid day.

Grant pushes to his feet, then holds out a hand to help her to hers. He doesn’t let go once she’s standing.

“You wanna take the rest of the day?” he offers.

She glances to her lab bench, then quickly away when all she can see is what might have happened if he hadn’t interrupted. There’s blood pooled and smeared on the tile where Levens fell; she hopes, with sudden spite, that it stains.

“Yes, please.”

“Good,” he says, and pulls out his phone. “That’ll give me time to replace all of the guards.”

He holds her hand all the way to his quarters, and not even the fact that she’s once again lost his attention—and loses even more of it when Kebo shows up—lessens the thrill it gives her.


	3. Chapter 3

Jemma is so absorbed in her work that she doesn’t even recognize the alarm at first. It’s not until one of the guards grabs her arm and physically pulls her away from her lab bench that she processes that the loud blaring is anything other than one more minor annoyance to block out.

“What—?”

“We’re under attack,” Hoyer says tightly. She doesn’t drop Jemma’s arm now that she has her attention, instead using it to drag her towards the door. “We need to evacuate, _now_.”

Jemma stumbles along after her. Usually she’s excellent in a crisis, but being jarred out of her work so abruptly leaves her struggling to catch up. Even as the sound of gunfire grows loud enough to overwhelm the alarm, part of her brain is still focused on considering her latest project and the optimal proportion of toxin to—

Another burst of gunfire sounds from much, much closer, and Hoyer goes down. It’s pure luck that Jemma manages not to be pulled down with her; as it is, the precious second it takes to regain her balance robs her of the chance to flee.

“Simmons!”

Her heart drops.

“ _Simmons_!”

Slowly, she turns around, already knowing by the voice who she’ll see. It’s Mack, face set in stern lines and gun aimed straight at her.

“I don’t wanna hurt you, Simmons,” he says, gun never wavering. “Just walk over to me nice and slow and we’ll get out of here, okay?”

“I can’t,” she tells him, wincing when it comes out more as a plea than a firm statement.

But it’s true. She can’t. There are days that she misses SHIELD—misses working with a clear conscience, misses her team, misses interacting with people capable of making eye contact without flinching—so much she can barely speak for it, but she knows there’s no going back.

And she won’t leave Grant.

“Yes, you can.” Mack raises his gun a little higher. “Because I’m not giving you a choice. If you try to run, I _will_ shoot.”

Running is _precisely_ what she wants to do, but it’s proving remarkably difficult. Her feet are like lead; she can barely lift them at all. She manages one step backward, and then another—

And then Mack pulls the trigger.

Pain—a sharp, shooting pain that starts in her side and then burns through her entire body—muddles her perception of time. Somehow, she’s on the ground—she’s bleeding—it _hurts_ —before she hears the gunshot that came first.

Then it’s just _pain;_ staring up at the ceiling without seeing it, hearing sounds she can’t make actions out of—there’s no room in her mind for anything but the fire racing along her nerves, the agony that radiates from her side and the way it spikes higher and higher every time she breathes.

Time passes, or it doesn’t. It might be an hour or only seconds before there’s someone above her—a guard, she thinks, recognizing the uniform but not the face—and a strong hand shoving down on her wound.

She screams.

The guard says something—she thinks she hears her name—but it’s all just white noise to accompany the white hot pain until her mind sharpens at the sudden, “Sir!” shouted in the distinctive tone that means it’s aimed at _Grant_.

Jemma closes her eyes and wishes she could close her _ears_. She certainly can’t cover them (she doesn’t believe she’s capable of moving at all) but god, does she want to. She knows—she _knows_ —that Grant is about to tell the guard to leave her. She knows. And she doesn’t want _that_ to be the last thing she ever hears.

As such, the sudden flare of pain is a mercy; there’s a roaring in her ears that blocks everything else out, her vision goes dark, and then—

And then she’s screaming as her wound is painfully jarred and sobbing when the scream makes it hurt even _worse_ , which of course the sob only multiplies, but none of that matters because her eyes open to Grant’s face.

She’s in his arms, she realizes, and the jarring is because he’s _carrying_ her; there’s still gunfire, which means they’re still under attack, and yet he’s impeding his speed and his ability to defend himself by carrying her in his arms.

She knows a brief moment of pure joy before the pain rises up once more to pull her under.

 

 

 

Pain is also what drags her back to consciousness, and she opens her eyes with the surety that she’ll discover that someone has shoved their hands into her wound to physically rip her apart.

They haven’t, though, and the confusion and pain combine to slow her mind horribly.

Details trickle in, and with extreme effort, she drags them together to form slow conclusions.

She’s in the back seat of some form of large vehicle. Her legs are stretched along the seat. There is a firm hand on her wound. She is being cradled against a familiar chest. Her head lolls against a shoulder she knows well.

Grant. It’s Grant, holding her close and exerting life-saving pressure to keep her from bleeding out. The base was under attack, and he took the time to bring her with him as he fled.

There’s no time to take pleasure in that, however; the car bumps, jolting her terribly and sending fire racing through her nerves.

She cries out.

“Damn it, Hicks,” Grant snaps. His hand remains pressed firmly over her wound, a steady, white hot pain at her ribs. It’s both torture and almost nice; she’s freezing everywhere else.

“Sorry, sir,” Hicks says calmly from the driver’s seat. “Roads’re shit. We’re almost at the rendezvous.”

Grant mutters something that sounds very dire, but either it’s not in English or Jemma’s pain is overwhelming her again, because she doesn’t understand a word of it. Either is possible, but she thinks the first more likely—mostly because she has no trouble at all with what he says next.

“You hear that?” he asks her, free hand tender as it brushes away the sweat-dampened hair that clings to her face. “We’re almost there, sweetheart. Just a little longer.”

She can’t find her breath to respond, not with the screaming agony still running through her side and radiating through her entire body. Fortunately, Grant doesn’t appear to be expecting a reply.

“What do we know, Markham?”

Jemma lets Markham’s reply wash over her without attempting to make sense of it. Her world is a confusion of pain and regret and a truly pathetic delight as she lets her eyes slip closed.

Grant _saved_ her. She fully expected him to leave her behind—not wanting his men to touch the woman he’s sleeping with hardly means he would care about her coming to harm—and not only did he _not_ , he put himself in danger to bring her along. He _risked his own life_ to save hers.

It’s hard not to take hope in that.

Hicks’ sudden swear breaks through the even cadence of Markham’s voice, and Jemma feels Grant’s heart pick up speed against her back. It’s a surprisingly soothing sensation.

“What?” he asks.

“Construction,” Hicks says succinctly, and then, after a strange electronic beeping Jemma’s pain-fogged mind can’t make sense of, “We’re gonna have to off-road it for the next couple miles.”

“Fuck,” Grant bites out. Jemma forces her eyes open at the tone, just in time to meet his. “I’m sorry, sweetheart; this is gonna hurt. Try to stay awake for me, okay?”

He’s never called her sweetheart before, but now he’s done it twice in the span of a few minutes. She likes it very much.

She thinks about telling him so, but doesn’t have the chance; the car turns, and just like that, her world becomes pain. It’s like being shot over and over and over again, the constant jolting of her side. She screams.

“Shhhh.” Grant kisses her temple, his free arm wrapping across her chest to stop her from curling in on herself. His other hand never budges. “I got you, sweetheart, you’re okay. You’re gonna be fine.”

She manages to cut off her scream, but her pain demands to be voiced, and so she sobs, “Grant.”

“I know,” he says, squeezing her shoulder. The weight of his arm across her collarbone grounds her slightly, but she still has to strain to hear him over the rushing in her ears. Her wound throbs with every bump of the car. “I know it hurts, but I need you to stay with me.”

“I can’t—”

“You _will_ ,” he orders, and then gentles his tone. “Talk to me.”

“About wh—” She chokes on another scream as there’s a particularly hard bump; Hicks swears viciously.

“Tell me who shot you,” Grant says. His hand presses even harder against her injury, and agony steals the breath from her lungs.

“Mack,” she gasps.

Grant’s hand leaves her shoulder to wipe the tears from her face. “Mack, huh? He was with Gonzales, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.” The car is slowing, and she drags in as deep a breath as she’s able. “I knew he never liked me, but I didn’t expect…”

A full sentence is too much for her, it seems; winded, she stops. But he can fill in the rest of it easily enough, she’s certain.

“Never liked you?” he asks, as if such a thing is patently absurd. It warms her all the way through (which is lovely, as she’s shivering from cold). “Why the hell not?”

“Fitz,” she manages. “He told me how he felt. I bailed. I made him worse.”

It comes out disjointed and therefore misleading—she makes it sound as if her absence made Fitz worse, when in fact the opposite was true—but that’s not the part of her explanation Grant focuses on.

“ _Bailed_?” he asks. “Is that a direct quote?”

Breathless, she nods against his shoulder.

She remembers every word, every second, of that conversation with Mack. Even now, overcome with pain and blood loss, her lungs constrict with the memory. How the bottom dropped out of her stomach and the world wavered beneath her feet at hearing her worst fear confirmed—and by Fitz’s new best friend, at that.

She knew she made him worse. Of course she knew; she could hardly miss it. But everyone from Coulson to Skye had assured her she didn’t, and she had allowed herself to be comforted by their lies.

Some days she misses SHIELD with all her heart. Some days she’s relieved to be away.

“ _Bailed_ ,” Grant says again, utterly disgusted. “He knows you were undercover, right?”

A sudden spike of agony as the car bumps once more turns her ‘yes’ into a wordless cry, and she can’t catch her breath to try again. Her vision is going grey at the edges, and though she’s vaguely aware of Grant’s voice at her ear, she can’t hear it over the pounding of her heart.

The pain drags her back under. She doesn’t fight it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to get some SHIELD POV in this chapter, but Grant and Jemma were determined to have their say. Hopefully having enjoyed more than 2,000 words here, they'll shut up a bit for the next chapter?
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

It’s Grant’s voice that wakes Jemma. That, in itself, isn’t unusual—especially as she’s spent every single night of the last month sleeping in his quarters—but there’s quite a bit that _is_.

He’s always awake before her, likely for his morning training, and never lingers in bed. He’s not given to early morning cuddling; either she wakes alone, or he wakes her for sex before he goes on his way. No exceptions.

But now…

His fingers are carding through her hair. Rather than a pillow, her cheek is resting on rough denim—she’s been sleeping on his thigh. And though he’s speaking, his voice is quiet, as though to avoid waking her.

“And personnel?” he’s asking.

Something more is strange, something beyond his presence and consideration, but she can’t quite determine _what_. It’s hard to think past the simple pleasure of the moment, the man she loves touching her like she means something as she rests comfortably in his bed.

“Seventy-five percent,” Markham’s voice answers, equally soft. “The evacuation protocol worked well.”

Grant scoffs. “A damn sight better than last time, at least.”

Oh.

The mention of evacuation does the trick, and all at once memories of the attack on the base come rushing back. With them comes the realization of what else is out of place: she isn’t hurting.

Well, all right, she is a bit. But the dull ache in her side is nothing to the screaming agony that paints her last memory. And that’s another thing that’s odd, because part of her wasn’t expecting to ever wake again…and yet here she is, not only conscious but much improved.

It’s that thought, more than any other, that compels her to open her eyes.

The room is dimly lit but plainly unfamiliar, all cherry wood and warm colors. She only has a moment to take it in, however; Markham is seated in a chair beside the bed, and he straightens as their eyes meet.

“Sir,” he says, and Grant’s fingers pause in her hair.

Her stomach goes tight with—not fear, precisely. Apprehension, maybe? Everything she thought she knew to expect from Grant has been thrown out the window; he saved her life and brought her to safety and has been stroking her hair as she slept on his thigh. _Something_ has obviously changed, and she doesn’t know how or what to change in response.

Simply lying here is no way to get answers, however, and so she rolls onto her back so that she might comfortably look up at Grant.

“Hey,” he says. His fingers are gentle as they trace the curve of her cheek. “How you feeling?”

“Surprisingly good,” she admits. “How long was I out?”

“I’ll get the doctor,” Markham says quietly.

“Almost a full day,” Grant says over the creak of the door. “We sedated you once we reached the rendezvous; figured you’d wanna miss the Quinjet ride. You’ve woken up a few times since we got here, but you were pretty out of it.” Before she can find a response to that, his hands leave her face to slip under her shoulders. “Here, you think you can sit up?”

“Yes,” she lies, and braces herself for a rush of agony as he helps her upright.

It never comes. The skin at her side pulls slightly, but the pain remains a very tolerable ache. It’s at such a low level that she believes she’d be fully capable of sitting unsupported—though of course she doesn’t protest when Grant guides her to lean back against his chest.

“Okay?” he asks, voice low at her ear as he carefully arranges the blanket over her bare legs.

She allows herself to soak that in—he’s actually _fussing_! Over _her_!—before she nods. “Fine. It’s really only been a day?”

The door creaks open again, and Markham leads in an older man in blue scrubs. For a heartbeat, Jemma thinks they’ve kidnapped some poor, innocent hospital worker…and then she notices the skull and tentacles on his shirt pocket.

Not a civilian, then; just someone with an uncommonly kind face for a HYDRA agent.

Kind face or no, however, he doesn’t make eye contact with her at all. Even as he perches on the edge of the bed right next to her, his focus stays on Grant.

“And how’s our patient?” he asks cheerfully.

Jemma cranes her neck to catch Grant’s gaze, worried that _he’s_ been injured as well, but he only raises his eyebrows at her in a clear prompt.

“Fine,” she says, turning back to the doctor. “In much less pain than I would have expected.”

“Good, good,” the doctor says, blatantly ignoring the question in her tone. He still hasn’t met her eyes. “Sir, if I may?”

Grant’s jaw brushes Jemma’s temple in a nod, then he’s tugging her shirt up to display the bandage covering her wound. The edge of his palm is warm against her skin as he holds her shirt (or, not _her_ shirt—now that she’s looking, it might actually be one of his) just below her breasts, and it soothes a little of the irritation she’s feeling at being so dismissed.

But only a _very_ little, and the rest of it is close to boiling over right up to the point when the doctor peels away the bandage. Then irritation—and everything else she’s feeling—is chased away by a rush of pure incredulity.

“Wh—I thought you said it’s been a _day_!” She bats away the doctor’s hand to prod at the wound herself, too shocked to pay any mind to Grant’s chest shaking in silent laughter. It certainly doesn’t _look_ a day old; if she’d been presented with a patient bearing this kind of injury, she’d assume it happened _weeks_ ago. The stitches—stitches she certainly didn’t have when she passed out—look nearly ready to be removed. “Grant, what…?”

He kisses her temple (which, despite her shock and confusion, still makes her heart jump), but doesn’t answer. “Doc?”

“It’s healing very nicely,” the doctor says, smoothing the bandage back down. “I’ll be able to take the stitches out in the morning, I think.”

“Good.” Grant sounds pleased and not a bit surprised as he lets her shirt drop. “Someone’ll come get you before breakfast. Be ready.”

Even to Jemma—who’s never, to her annoyance, been very good at picking up this sort of cue—it’s an obvious dismissal, and the doctor takes it as such. He barely pauses to offer a “Yes, sir,” before he’s up and out the door (without having once made eye contact).

Markham, on the other hand, lingers. “You still want those lists tonight?”

Grant’s thoughtful hum shudders through Jemma’s entire body, momentarily distracting her from her questions. It’s not as though he’s given to keeping his hands to himself, but this—holding her in his lap, tracing idle patterns along her thigh, staying in bed with her when there’s obviously quite a bit of work to be done—this is unusual.

It’s enough to make her nearly giddy. Which is, as always, quite pathetic of her, but after being _shot_ , she thinks she rather deserves it.

(Even through the giddiness, though, she has to wonder at the change. He’s been so attentive since she regained consciousness; if she didn’t know his touch so well, she’d think he wasn’t Grant at all.)

“Nah,” Grant decides. “Get working on what we already talked about. I might come find you later; if not, we’ll deal with it in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Markham says, and then looks to Jemma. “Do you need anything, Dr. Simmons?”

“Um,” Jemma says, caught off guard by the sudden attention. “No, thank you?”

Markham nods, appearing unbothered that her answer comes out more as a question, and slips out of the room. As the door closes behind him, Jemma covers Grant’s hand with both of hers, stilling it on her thigh.

“Grant,” she starts—but she can’t go any further than that. Her voice sticks in her throat, held back by a kind of fearful longing. She _needs_ answers, needs to know how her wound has healed so quickly and why he’s paying her such close attention, but at the same time, she’s afraid to push.

What if questioning him makes him remember he doesn’t care?

He chuckles and dips his head to kiss her shoulder. Her too-large shirt has slipped off of it, and her stomach clenches at the scrape of his stubble against her bare skin.

“You mean you haven’t figured it out yet?” he teases— _teases_!—her.

“Figured what out?” she asks, perhaps a bit breathlessly.

“What else could have you healing so fast?” he asks. The hand not trapped under hers lies gently over her bandaged wound. “We used some of your GH-325 substitute.”

Jemma’s heart skips at least three beats. Breathless now for an entirely different reason, she twists in his lap to face him—not an easy task when her world is reeling the way it is, but she needs to see his expression.

“You—really?” she asks, searching his face.

“Really,” he says.

Despite weeks of effort, Jemma has yet to accomplish her goal of altering the formula to make her GH-325 replica less costly. As such, its use is still heavily restricted; dozens of Grant’s men have been injured in the last few months (several near-fatally so), but as far as she knows, aside from Grant, only Warrington—one of Grant’s inner circle—has been allowed use of the replica.

It’s a very expensive, very limited resource—and that was _before_ the attack on their base, which she suspects lost them a good portion of the samples she kept for testing. On top of which, SHIELD is still hunting them and they’re in need of a new headquarters, which means that even setting aside the cost, it will be some time before more of the replica can be manufactured.

But Grant used it on her anyway.

No amount of common sense or reason can stop her heart from taking hope in this. All the stern talkings-to in the _world_ couldn’t counter this real, tangible proof: after risking his own life to save her, coming back for her and carrying her out of danger in his own two arms, Grant sacrificed a portion of their very limited supply of a life-saving drug for _her_.

He must care. He _must_.

“Why?” she asks, voice barely even a whisper.

Grant’s eyes are as soft as her voice as he tucks her hair behind her ear. Hands the gentlest they’ve ever been, he cups her jaw and pulls her forward—not for a kiss, as she expects, but to rest his forehead against hers.

“I told you before,” he murmurs, “you belong to me. _No one_ is gonna take you away from me.”

He _has_ said that before—last month, after Levens attacked her, he held her in his lap and said that she belonged to him and that no one was allowed to touch her.

But somehow, this is different. She can’t put her finger on _how_ , precisely, but she knows it is—and not just in phrasing. His inflections, his expression, the sweet way he’s touching her…all of it is very distinctly not the same. His _tone_ has changed.

He’s still saying she belongs to him, but what he _means_ —

She doesn’t know what he means. She only knows that it’s changed…and that she doesn’t dare to press further. It would be greedy, surely, to demand more when he’s already given her so much—and like a superstitious child frightened of a jinx, part of her worries that bringing his own words to his attention will prompt him to revert to his previous behavior.

There’s no need for questions anyway, is there? She has plenty, now, to hold close to her heart: that he saved her life, that he used the replica on her, the way he’s looked at and touched and spoken to her since she woke up…

All of it is individually so much more than she ever thought to get from him when she first threw aside her morals in favor of even the slightest hint of affection.

And put all together…it’s enough.

So rather than request clarification, she draws him in for a kiss. It’s short—though her wound is greatly reduced, it _is_ still present, and the slight pull at her skin is becoming a painful tug—but just as sweet and gentle as his touch. It shakes her a little, albeit in a very pleasant way.

“Thank you,” she breathes when they break apart.

Grant only smiles. “Thank yourself. It’s your formula.” The pressure of his hands against her jaw increases for a moment before he lets them drop. “You wanna try to eat something?”

Her stomach turns at the mere suggestion. She shakes her head.

“Back to sleep, then?”

_That_ sounds much more pleasant…especially if he intends to stay. She wishes she had the nerve to ask him.

“Yes,” she says instead. “That’s probably a good idea. The replica…”

“…burns a lot of your energy while it heals you,” Grant completes as she hesitates. “I remember. You need help?”

He doesn’t wait for a response, simply maneuvers her out of his lap and onto her good side without further ado. Though her wound is beginning to feel tender, he manages not to aggravate it in the slightest.

Best of all, he makes no move to leave the bed. He waits in patient silence as she makes herself comfortable against him, then tucks the blanket securely around her shoulders.

Sitting back against the headboard, he says, “Sleep well,” like it’s an order.

And she does.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, some very gross stuff is said by a very gross person. As such, **warnings** for misogynistic language, discussion of rape, and people taking an unreliable narrator at face value. The gross stuff is said in the first section but referenced (in varying degrees) throughout, so if you’re easily triggered, you might wanna give this chapter a miss.
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

For approximately three hours, Phil actually dares to think things might be looking up.

Of course, ‘looking up’ is a relative term. The raid on Ward’s base was a disaster in almost every sense, starting with Mack being forced to shoot and then abandon Simmons and ending with the self-destruct sequence that meant they didn’t even manage to get their hands on any real intel. They lost six agents in the raid and have since lost a further fifteen, globally, to Ward’s retaliation.

There’s only one thing keeping the whole day from being filed away as a catastrophe: the prisoner.

The main objective of the raid was to rescue Simmons, which meant searching out and storming any prisoner holding areas was a high priority for all of the teams Phil sent in. They didn’t find Simmons in the actual, literal _dungeon_ Ward had hiding in his basement (she was upstairs, seconds away from escape when Mack found her) but they _did_ find someone else—someone the rescue team brought with them when they fled the exploding base.

Phil doesn’t know who Richard Levens is, but it’s plain from his condition that he’s crossed Ward somehow—badly enough that Ward has tortured him for _weeks_ , if some of his oldest wounds are any indication. Even his brother, who allegedly spent their entire childhood abusing him, was dead within a day; that Ward’s bothered to keep Levens alive for so long means there must be a serious grudge there.

And if there’s a grudge on _Ward’s_ side, then Levens—who has a list of injuries fit to turn Phil’s stomach (and he’s not the squeamish type)—must be just dying to get back at him. How better than by spilling everything he knows about Ward and HYDRA to the people Ward hates most in the world?

So, yeah. For three really great hours, he thinks they’ve finally hit a break.

Five minutes into his conversation with Levens, Phil’s stomach is turning for an entirely different reason.

“—like it was my fucking fault,” Levens is slurring, tongue loosened and clumsied by a long list of painkillers Phil is now very tempted to cut off. “Just because I wanted a little fun—bitch _owed_ me, and how was I s’posed to know she was off limits? Not like she’s his fucking _girlfriend_ , just some whore he uses when he’s too pissed to be gentle with that cunt that answers his phone—”

Scattered among the misogyny, whining, and cursing are tidbits of a story that Phil manages to piece together far more quickly than he’d like. The fact that there’s not a single unbroken bone in either one of Levens’ hands has taken on a whole new meaning—a meaning that drains away every single drop of pity Phil had when he first walked into the room.

“—didn’t do nothing but fuck if he didn’t act like I broke the bitch right in front of him—”

The exact circumstances are a little hazy, but the gist of it is that Levens tried to rape Simmons—and Ward, apparently, didn’t approve.

“—almost every fucking day with it and that whore with her nose in the air like she’s _better_ than me—”

He wishes he could take comfort in that—could pretend that it means Ward is looking out for Simmons, somehow, even as he’s keeping her prisoner—but he’s not in the habit of deluding himself. Every time they cross paths with him, Ward’s full of haunting things to say about the many ways he’s personally abused Simmons. Nothing in Levens’ profanity-laden rant contradicts any of it.

“—back in like we don’t all know she just had Ward’s dick in her mouth—”

Phil leaves. It’s the only way to stop himself from adding to that list of tortures Levens has suffered.

 

 

 

The problem with living in a super-secret base is that there aren’t many places to hide. There are plenty of places to be _alone_ —the Playground is huge and while recruitment’s up, they’re still a long way from filling it—but the cameras in every corner make it almost impossible not to be found.

No system is perfect, so there are a few blind spots, but there aren’t many and they aren’t a secret. So when someone goes missing, everyone knows where to look.

All of which is to say, it doesn’t really surprise Daisy that she only gets about ten minutes of solitude.

“Interview done already?” she asks, as Coulson rounds the corner at the end of the hall. There’s nothing in this part of the base but empty offices and a maintenance closet or two; no point in pretending he’s here for anything but her. “That was fast.”

She’s proud of how even her voice is—it’s all about control—but Coulson’s face makes it obvious she’s not fooling him. He doesn’t push, though.

“I needed a break,” he says instead, just as lightly as she did. “Figured I’d take a walk.”

“Yeah.” Daisy breathes through her anger, holding tight to her powers. It’s been months since she had this much trouble keeping things steady—just like it’s been months since she felt like this, like she’ll just shake apart any second. It hurts all the way down to her _soul_. “Me too.”

Coulson nods to himself and, without ceremony, drops down to sit right next to her, ass on the dusty floor and back to the dirty wall. He’s a lot less fastidious since he stopped wearing suits; sometimes she kinda misses it.

“How much did you hear?” he asks bluntly.

Before booking it to the most remote part of the Playground she could think of, Daisy impulsively swung by her room to grab her hula dancer. She’s had it balanced on her knee for the last ten minutes; now, she looks down at it and nudges it to set it swaying.

“Enough,” she says, eyes locked on the familiar motion. It helps to have a focus, something other than the boiling rage turning her stomach to think about.

Or it _usually_ helps. Right now it’s kind of having the exact opposite effect, because the hula dancer only makes her think of Jemma—Jemma taking the time to save it off the Bus for her, looking so nervous when she handed it over like a peace offering, like she needed to _apologize_ for doing her best to help Daisy.

And Jemma’s the _last_ person she should be thinking about if she wants to keep herself in check.

Coulson’s mouth goes tight with concern. “Daisy—”

“He’s _raping_ her,” she snaps. It just bursts out of her, slipping past her filter the same way her power slips from her grasp—just for a second, just long enough to make the ground tremor. Then she reins it back in with a deep breath that comes pretty close to a sob on the exhale.

She didn’t spend long observing Coulson’s interview with the prisoner—just long enough a) to break the glass in his office window and b) for her skin to start crawling from Levens’ drugged ramblings.

Long enough to hear about how often Ward drags Jemma out of her lab (her _lab_ , like everything else isn’t torture enough, he’s making her science for him, too) to hurt her. Long enough to take in Levens’ petulant comments about how he didn’t get to _join in on the fun_.

Long enough to know that they’ve just gotten independent confirmation of all the taunts Ward’s thrown at them since kidnapping Jemma—every ugly word about how he’s treated her, every sickening syllable she’d managed to convince herself was just a lie meant to upset them.

It’s all true.

“He’s raping her,” she says again, quieter, because if Jemma has to live with it the least Daisy can do is fucking _voice_ it. “And we left her there. Mack _shot_ her and we left her there.”

“He didn’t have a choice,” Coulson says gently.

“Yeah.” She can’t stand the tenderness in Coulson’s face, so she stares down at her hands, studying the scratches decorating her knuckles. “I heard his report. But having a good reason doesn’t change the fact that he _did_ it.”

“No,” Coulson agrees. He tips his head back against the wall, looking old in a way that’s starting to get downright familiar. “It doesn’t.”

“When I got shot,” she says—forces herself to say, to push past the painful lump of tears in her throat, “it was weeks before I could even stand up without Jemma fussing.” Her eyes sting. “How long do you think Ward’s gonna give her before he goes right back to—”

“Hey, hey.” Coulson catches and holds her hand, squeezing just tight enough to anchor her. “We can’t think like that.”

“How can I _not_?” she asks, plaintive.

How can she not remember Jemma’s hovering, her _love_ —how Jemma barely left her alone for three seconds? How can she not think about Jemma dozing in the chair beside her bed, too worried to even risk sleeping a whole floor away?

How can she not compare the way Jemma took care of her to the way _Jemma’s_ probably being treated right this second?

“With that kind of injury, even stuff that’s not supposed to hurt is agony,” she says. “How much worse would—”

“We’re gonna find her,” he interrupts, hand clamping around hers. “Okay? The raid didn’t go well, but it _did_ make Ward angry, and when he’s angry he makes mistakes. We’ll find him and we’ll take him down and we’ll bring Jemma home. And _that_ is the time to start worrying about what she’s been through: when we’re in a position to make it better. Okay?”

It doesn’t help. She doesn’t think anything can.

But she knows Coulson’s not gonna go away until he thinks she’s okay, so she summons up a smile from—god, who knows where—and squeezes his hand in return.

“Okay,” she says, and her voice shakes but the ground doesn’t, so she’ll call it a win. “Just so you know, when we find Ward I’m gonna vibrate his head till it explodes.”

He laughs like he thinks she’s joking, which is good.

If he doesn’t realize she’s deadly serious, he won’t tell her not to do it, and she won’t have to get in trouble for disobeying a direct order.

 

 

 

It’s just past three in the morning, but Melinda’s not surprised to find Phil in his office—or that he has Levens’ (longer but no more helpful) second interrogation playing on loop.

He isn’t surprised, either, when she announces her presence with a succinct, “Levens is dead.”

Any of the kids would have jumped; Phil just sits back with a heavy sigh, setting aside the report he’s probably spent at least an hour staring at without seeing.

“How?”

“Officially?” She takes one of the visitor’s chairs, more for the excuse to turn her back on the looping footage than anything else. It’s thankfully muted, but just the sight of Levens makes her skin itch. Not even the very recent memory of his still-cooling corpse helps. “He succumbed to his wounds.”

“And unofficially?” he asks, voice tight.

“He was smothered with his own pillow.”

Phil’s raised eyebrow asks if she was the one to do it. Melinda shakes her head.

He closes his eyes. “Any suspects?”

“Plenty,” she says, offering a minute shrug when he opens his eyes. “The cameras in the infirmary are all malfunctioning, and Levens was in no shape to fight off an attacker.”

“So it could’ve been anyone,” Phil says slowly.

It could have. Bobbi has full run of the infirmary these days, so she had easy access. Mack will be feeling the weight of leaving Simmons behind—he looked like _he’d_ been shot when he caught a few words of Levens’ interrogation. Hunter has been reckless to the point of insanity since Bobbi was tortured.

It could have been any of them—or any number of other agents who have a soft spot for Simmons and/or just don’t tolerate men who talk about women the way Levens does.

“It could have been anyone,” she confirms, and Phil drops his head in his hands, because they both know it wasn’t _anyone_.

Daisy redesigned the security system, Fitz has had lessons in hacking from her, and they were both here with Melinda, watching from Phil’s office, when Levens was first questioned. Neither of them made it past the three minute mark.

It _could_ have been anyone, but it was Daisy or Fitz or both of them working together. Phil knows that just as well as Melinda does.

He looks up, eyes going past her to the screen on the far wall. She doesn’t have to turn and follow his gaze to know he’s looking at the image of Simmons projected next to the interrogation video. It’s from her official file—still the bright, smiling photo that was on her ID back in their Bus days.

She can’t stand to look at it. Simmons was so young—they were _all_ so young. And Melinda and Phil brought them together just in time to put them on the front line as the world fell apart.

“What the hell have we done to these kids?” Phil asks quietly.

Melinda has plenty of answers, none of them good.

She keeps them to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the lack of Jemma and Grant in this chapter, but SHIELD wanted its say. Next time we'll get back to them...probably.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [i can't find you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8928313) by [shineyma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma)
  * [chase the sunlight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10594194) by [shineyma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma)
  * [sunset in your eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11292510) by [shineyma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma)




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